Mission accomplished. On the second day of the tournament, figured out how to weave spectacular and dismal together into a bundle of fun. Version 0.1, at least.
The first several holes started out fine. Just fired away, played shot by shot, not worried about score, except at the end of each hole when the strokes need to be summed and recorded which gives brain opportunity to drift into "hey, I could shoot this today" mode. Would be great if someone else did the math for you.
On the 5th hole, an easy 370 yard-ish hole, hit the 3 wood off the tee too good, sent it beyond the bend in the fairway back into the wilderness, which triggered a chain reaction of bad stroke neutrons trying to recover from a shot that was hit too good. Shit. I needed that wake up to again toss score out the golf cart, and get back to just playing aggressive and fun.
Left alone to do its thing, the body hit a lot of really good shots today (aside from the short game). Practice is paying off. It was great fun.
The brain made many mistakes, like being lazy and not measuring distance before selecting clubs, or, picking up a 6 inch putt instead of finishing it, and being so focused on the line I forget about the downhill slope of a chip or putt. More situational presence discipline needed to fix these gaps.
On the matter of skill, the short game from inside 150 yards is unfortunately completely random. I make a few good ones, but it's just luck with odds generally not in my favor. With the wedges, I don't know how to properly adjust for distance, and when I try, directional control also goes out the window. For chips and pitches, I don't accelerate through the ball and have no spin control so every stoke is a harrowing experience of slap and hope leading to more of the same with the putter.
Slashing out of the deep weeds strained some ligaments or tendons in my left hand and arm. Time to give it some rest, hunker down with the Tube and start planning the short game practice agenda. Also, now that I kinda understand the concept, once a week, I'll play for score, without worrying about score until I figure out how to weave the purpose of the short game (to score) into the practice paradigm.
So, there's striking the ball where you trust and go for it, and separately a short game where it's about getting it into the cup, hence score. Keep climbing... :-)